[SOLVED] NFS4, NFS3 and user IDs

jody · l33t Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 668 Location: Switzerland

Hi
I have a server using NFS 3 and a workstation (using NFS 4) mounting some directories from the server.

When i look at users and groups of the mounted directories they are all '4294967294' wich apparently means "nobody".
However i would prefer to see the user names and group names (as defined on the server).
BTW - we have made sure that any user's ID is the same on all computers.

Some posts i read mentioned that nfsidmap does some sort of UID mapping, but it seems that there is only 'net-libs/libnfsidmap', so i emerged that.
My net-fs/nfs-utils seems to have been built with the USE flag 'nfsidmap', so it should "Enable support for newer nfsidmap helper", shouldn't it?

Can anybody tell me what steps i have to take to see user names and group names instead of '4294967294'?

Thank You

Syl20 · l33t Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 619 Location: France

ID mapping is just a conversion table between a local user and a remote user. That means the usernames you want to be displayed must exist on the server _and_ on the client, no matter what UID they have. In this case, you may need to enable NFS ID mapping in the kernel (on the client and on the server), and to configure /etc/idmapd.conf on the client.
If the UID are identical on both sides, you need nothing, that should just work.

If you want to display a username that exists on the server but not on the client, you need a NIS server.

Last, but not least, don't mix NFSv3 and NFSv4, that will not work, the protocols are really too different.

jody · l33t Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 668 Location: Switzerland

Hi
Thanks for your reply

I opened menuconfig but was unable to find an entry which looked like settings NFS ID mapping.
Do you know where i could find this?for"IDMAP" or ID MAP?

Syl20 · l33t Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 619 Location: France

I don't think there is a kernel configure option, but a /sys/module/... file.
Maybe this will help you.

jody · l33t Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 668 Location: Switzerland

I just found out: when i add the option 'nfsvers=3' in /etc/fstab of the client, and then mount the network drive, i can see the names (at least thse which exist on the client side).

The problem is: with this option set, the network drives are not mounted during boot.
There is an error message like this: